Accessibility Links

How to save Libya: send in an army of accountants

Oil revenues must be managed properly, the cash distributed fairly

Roger Boyes

May 22 2014, 1:01am, The Times

Libya should be a British success story. We helped to persuade Colonel Gaddafi to give up his nuclear plans. And later, with France, we deployed the military force that made his overthrow inevitable. Yet as the country slips into chaos, Britain’s inclination is to write Libya off as a bad investment. It has become one of the embarrassing footnotes of the Arab Spring, best ignored by forward-looking policy-makers.

That’s foolish. Libya needs our full attention. With the West trying to diversify its energy supplies away from Vladimir Putin’s Russia, we cannot let a big oil producer fall by the wayside. Because of the feuding between clans, Libya is pumping out only 300,000 barrels a day. Under Gaddafi it was 1.6 million a day.